As some of you will know, I’ve recently moved to the country. It’s been a big change and I’ve only just gotten my internet hooked up, thus missing appearing on the last two pods. That hurts as I’ve only missed one since we started.

Anyways, I’ve still been working on my rankings for the upcoming season and some things for the pod and wanted to have a bit of a brain vomit about some things #brand and fantasy footy related. I’ll try to cover each team a little bit, but there’s some things I’d like to put down, even if it’s just for the sake of putting it down.

FANTASY

  • I can’t stand the idea of drafting Brodie Grundy with a top 5 pick outside of a 3-4-1-3 league or 14+ teamer. It makes sense and it’s probably optimal but I don’t know if I could pull the trigger.

  • In drafts I’ll be targeting rucks who don’t appear to be in a split role and rely on hitouts to make up a big chunk of their score. At this stage that appears to be Nankervis and Kreuzer.

  • The two biggest things I look for in fantasy are a vacated role and natural development. When the vacated role is a giant inside mid role, I’m all over it – especially if they’re not filled by an ‘obvious’ candidate. Neale leaving Freo and Lyons leaving Gold Coast are big.

  • I really like Isaac Heeney this year.

  • If all kick ins are worth 3 fantasy points, it’s a pretty big deal, especially if you think actual scoring is about to increase. I know we say forwards are low priority, but the new rules could make it so leaving the first four rounds of your draft without two defenders is a huge mistake. It probably is anyway.

  • Rory Sloane is unders, Rory Laird feels like overs. Adelaide are really interesting to me.

  • Jarrad Lyons going to Brisbane is annoying. I thought Neale had a chance to be the highest scorer. Lyons faces stiffer competition for inside ball but may be able to win more uncontested as Brisbane should be able to transition better than Gold Coast. It would appear the move may cap Zorko and Berry and really hurt someone like Mitch Robinson.

  • Fyfe scares me with the injury history, but he’s one of the few players I project to average over 120 SC.

  • The Blakely to the mids is interesting. They could have played him in the middle last year. But does the 6-6-6 starting positions make him a liability in defence? Brayshaw and Cerra are two of my favourite keepers.

  • Use logic in your assessments of how/why someone will break out.  Not everyone can fit into a midfield.  If someone moves in, who moves out?  Or does it become a big rotation where no-one dominates time and it’s a big timeshare where a lot struggle?

  • With the 6-6-6 starting positions, do forward tags come back in style? I still have night terrors from Heath Shaw being made Angus Monfries’ bitch every year.

  • Carlton’s backline is interesting. I hope Matt Kennedy gets a clear run at it, it would appear he’s coming in at massive unders.

  • If you’re in a keeper league and believe this is either Shaun Grigg’s last or 2nd last year – trade for Jack Higgins at some point.

  • I always look at someone who breaks a record as a regression candidate, usually when it’s a possession based record. I looked at previous high averaging tacklers (Swallow, Scott Selwood, etc) and found after their dominant tackle season, they often IMPROVED for fantasy! Can Devon Smith get better?

  • Tim Taranto should kick it up another gear. I don’t believe Hopper has the same upside. Toby Greene has a WIDE draft range and I’m all about that life.

  • Don’t forget – it’s Aaron Francis szn.

  • If you want to draft Macrae first, I ain’t arguing it.

  • Dangerfield could (but won’t) go number one in SC, even if he doesn’t get FWD status.

  • The rule changes may leave us fantasy footy pundits with egg on their faces. And even more after we react during the opening rounds and tactics change again. I think we all need to be open to how wrong we could be on this one. Scoring as a whole may tumble, flip, whatever.

  • I won’t own any shares of Justin Westhoff. I don’t see how he matches his 2018 average, as good as he was. Gun player, but feel he’s going to be overdrafted.

  • Will Brodie might be the Gold Coast mid to own in a keeper league, but he mightn’t be all that startable on a week to week basis. Jack Bowes is of mega interest though.

  • The Chad at Hawthorn. I have so many questions. Not really. Just – WHERE ARE YOU GONNA PLAY!!??!!

  • Dustin Martin should beast it. He should’ve this year. Value or will his #brand see him taken early? I’m very interested if he starts going in the back of the 3rd and beyond.

  • Gaff’s suspension could render him a value, but probably not.

  • It’s probably hard not to draft a Collingwood mid since they have them all, but which one is the right one? Treloar should be the highest drafted. Does Sidey maintain his more inside role? Does Beams play forward? Does Sier get a game? Does Pendles go back? Does Adams? Either way, De Goey’s planted inside that forward fifty.

  • Is Caleb Daniel actually Lewis Taylor in headgear?

  • I’ll be interested at the ratio of Sam Dochery-to-Zac Williams locked in for fantasy tweets. Both studs. I’d love to draft both (and probably can), but we all know who the better value is. It’s a kind of parallel between salary cap and draft. One is the glaring, obvious, done it before superstar. The other, the lower supporter base, yet uber talented, under the radar jet who can light up an oval. Whatever, they’re both in every salary cap team so all value will probably get sucked out anyway.

  • North might take a few weeks to figure it out. I really like Jy Simpkin, but the inclusions hurt him. I’m SUPER cagey about Aaron Hall’s inside mid claim.

  • I’m really hesistant about St Kilda but still like Billings and Acres long term aside from the obvious mids.

  • Melbourne are……….I like CP5, but it’s starting to look like he’s a slow burn build like Chappy was. Could be wrong though, contested beast who can kick goals.

  • Contested possessions are the king of stats. Build from there.

OUR #BRAND

  • I was a bit apprehensive about adding more talents to the Draft Doctors’ stable. But Sam and Cam both impressed me beyond what I could have imagined. I hope y’all appreciate their efforts and let them know if you do.

  • It looks like we’ve got another pretty big addition to our content-producing-stable which is exciting for the new season.

  • The Mock Draft Sim tool was something that’s been in the pipeline for a while and it was great to see it come to life. We’re really excited to keep improving it and hope people continue to get value from it.

  • We were so blessed to have The Statesman come aboard 2 years ago. To think of what he puts in around his work and family commitments is unbelievable. His humour and experience make us ten times better. I hope he can go 2 places better in AFL Fantasy, and of course, have a couple of beers together IRL again soon.

  • We’re strongly looking at bringing back a second weekly in-season pod. There’s water to cross under the bridge, but it’s on the table.

  • I’m blown away by you guys, the listeners. The quality social media interactions, the questions for the pod, the jokes, the #bantz, roasting us for mistakes, the download numbers even in the fantasy dead time, I’m forever grateful for what you bring to the show and how you improve it.

  • In fact, it was a great night being able to hang out and meet a bunch of listeners at the DT Talk live show, as well as fantasy footy royalty in the Traders, Monty and Lekdog.

  • Having done over 100 open mic stand up gigs and doing poetry gigs, the idea of a live show has always appealed to me. It’s always tough to say if we have the numbers to support a night but it’s something we’ve spoken about, had requested of us, etc. We’ve got plans in place for a show if we ever commit to doing it, but we’re kind of in a spot where we could draw a crowd of ten people or 100 people. And we make up some of the ten. Maybe there’s ways to crowd-fund around it or whatever, sponsor it, but the 2019 preseason might be a year too early. I mean, fuck, there could be a rerun of the Naked Gun on that night. Who’s leaving the house for us when that’s on?!

  • I’m still really proud of the BnF pod. I really think there could be more crossover in fantasy pods and we’re lucky to have so many awesome guests on again and again. Even if our picks were kind of shit. We’ve been accomodating if people have asked for a spot and grateful when we get offered one.

  • A big move for us this year was to move away from reciting fantasy scores from the weekend. I’m really proud of the move and think it worked well. It certainly enabled us to talk about things which we haven’t been able to in years past when we were focusing on studs and duds.

FANTASY IN GENERAL

  • I wish there were more female voices in fantasy footy.

  • If you’re starting a fantasy podcast/blog/whatever – share others work, be cool, don’t abuse, but most importantly – try to say something original.

  • The whole DT vs SC and ‘which is harder’ annoys me. They’re both different and require different strategies. In terms of salary cap, if you’re playing for the overall prize, whichever has the bigger field is by default harder, but c’mon, let’s grow up. If you prefer one, that’s cool. I have my preference but to suggest it’s ‘harder’ or ‘represents the game better’, fair dinkum.

  • If people want to put their content on Patreon or whatever, that’s their choice. We’ve discussed it behind the scenes and had some great listeners message us saying they’d support us if we did. Ultimately, we’ve chosen not to at this point, but I imagine it will only become more prevalent. A lot of times people aren’t paying for the content. It’s because they like the hosts, feel a connection with the show and want a way of monetarily thanking the creators for their work. I’ve been a patron of a few shows before and felt I’ve gotten value, not from the fantasy info, but just as an experience. It’s kind of like how people don’t want to pay to read newspaper articles online. I think a large chunk of the public expect content like that for free, especially judging from the comments on social media. Like I said, we’ve explored it, and may use it in the future, but at the moment our model is different. Is it right/optimal? Time will tell, but we do have a number of running costs and took a hit financially for the first couple of years. Part of developing ancillary products like the mock draft tool was to start being able to have the show pay for itself. We’re lucky the show is actually starting to pay for itself, hopefully we can look at upgrading mics/equipment/etc soon, but it takes time. A smarter person than me once said about business ‘Take the longest view in the room’.

  • Don’t @ players with something negative. You’re being a jerk. Even positive stuff is dicey.

  • We’re all gonna have hits, and we’re all gonna have misses.

  • Learn from your mistakes AND your successes.

  • Be good to yourselves and each other.

If you got this far, thanks for reading. If you have a comment, no matter what it is, I’m all ears.

Otherwise, I’ll be back to destroy your ears soon:)

Steve